Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc., the Bay Area-based cafe chain, is going private for $977.6 million - but it's not being sold to Starbucks, its giant Seattle rival. Instead, German conglomerate Joh. A. Benckiser will shell out $73.50 a share to buy the Emeryville company, paying a 29% premium on Friday's $57.16 closing price. Peet's had just under 200 stores as of this spring. Last spring, Peet's and Starbucks were rumored to be in talks to combine in an effort to boost both brands' presence in grocery stores.

Starbucks Corp. will extend its post-4 p.m. Evenings menu, which includes alcohol, to thousands of stores nationwide. The program is already available at more than 25 locations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Portland and Atlanta, according to the company's website. At the four participating Southland Starbucks, the Evenings selection includes Parmesan-crusted chicken skewers with honey-dijon sauce, chocolate fondue with a dried fruit medley and madeleine cookies, beer and wine from Argentina, Italy and California.

April 20, 2012 | By Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots blog

Starbucks has declared that it will no longer use cochineal extract, an insect-derived red coloring, in its wares. If anyone is imagining that the use of this dye is rare or new, they're mistaken. At a UCLA “economic botany” website we learn, among other things, that cochineal bug, or Dactylopius coccus , if you want to address it formally, is an insect that sucks the sap of prickly pear cactus and was used by the early Mixtec Indians of pre-Hispanic Mexico as a red dye for clothing.

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. has struck a series of deals that will increase the kinds of company-approved coffee and tea that K-cup loving customers can buy. In one such deal, Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks Corp. said Friday that it had agreed to end its status as the exclusive super-premium coffee brand for Keurig Green Mountain Inc. Starbucks said in a statement that the deal was made in exchange for Keurig expanding its range of Starbucks products. Friday's announcement indicates a bit of a course change for the companies.

A 63-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly brandished a knife at a woman in a Starbucks parking lot in Glendale after she confronted him about an unpaid loan, police said. Vahik Avaness of Glendale was taken into custody Monday on suspicion of brandishing a knife and making threats, according to Glendale police reports. He was released later that day. The woman allegedly saw Avaness sitting in his Toyota Camry about 1 p.m. and decided to block him in with her Nissan Altima in the Starbucks parking lot in the 1700 block of West Glenoaks Boulevard.

Starbucks released the complete list Thursday of about 600 coffee shops nationwide that will be closing through the middle of next year. For an interactive map of all closings in California, go to latimes.com/starbucksmap. -- Sources: Starbucks, ESRI, TeleAtlas -- Los Angeles Times

Next time you pass a prickly pear patch, take a closer look, especially around the points where the spines stick out. You might see what looks like a spot or blotch of white or grayish cotton. At one point, the stuff under that little puff rivaled silver as a precious export. The white stuff is protective cover for the cochineal bug, which infests prickly pear, sometimes to the point where the pads look almost as white as they do green. Spread on a piece of paper, it gives a smear of deep red color, sometimes a bright fuchsia, other times almost a maroon.

Your Strawberries & Creme frappuchino will no longer feature a splash of bug - enough customers didn't want to slurp crushed cochineal insects that Starbucks Corp. is ditching the red dye used in their making. The Mexican and South American tropical creepy-crawlies were dried and then processed into a coloring product that gave some Starbucks goods - including strawberry banana smoothies, raspberry swirl cakes, birthday cake pops, mini doughnuts with pink icing and red velvet whoopee pie - their rosy hue. But it wasn't vegan.

Starbucks is opening a hi-tech juice-making facility in Rancho Cucamonga next year that the company said will quadruple the production and distribution capacity of its Evolution Fresh business. The 260,000-square-foot factory will create 160 manufacturing jobs, according to Starbucks. Of those, 120 jobs will be shifted from San Bernardino, where Evolution Fresh was first launched and where the juices are currently made. The facility will be Starbucks' sixth manufacturing site in the U.S. - the coffee giant also has locations in Washington, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.

Today's quiz: Who are the greater fools, gun-rights enthusiasts strolling into Starbucks outlets with firearms strapped to their waists in order to assert their right to openly carry weapons, or gun-control advocates protesting against Starbucks for not going all Gary Cooper on these postmodern cowboy wannabes and tossing them out of its coffee-saloon doors? For us, it's a close call. The recent commotion over "open carry," one of the more obscure issues in the gun-control debate, shows that common sense is uncommon on either side.

Starbucks customers using the company's iPhone app will be able to show some love to their baristas by tipping them through their smartphones starting March 19. The Seattle coffee giant enhanced its mobile app for Apple's iOS system to allow digital tipping at more than 7,000 company-owned stores in the U.S. Customers will be able to tip 50 cents, $1 or a maximum of $2. The company said the service was the upgrade most suggested by its customers...

The Dumb Starbucks parody store in Los Feliz that caused a spectacle before it was shut down by county health officials for operating without the proper permit isn't expected to reopen any time soon. Little more than three days after quietly opening, Nathan Fielder -- whose "Nathan for You" show airs on Comedy Central -- addressed the growing buzz Monday and revealed he was behind the parody during a news conference. But the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health shut down the store, which had a limited menu and other nonfood items, for not having a health permit.

February 10, 2014 | By Ryan Faughnder and Deborah Vankin, This post has been updated.

The origins of Dumb Starbucks , the seemingly rogue coffee shop that opened in the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles over the weekend, have been revealed: Nathan Fielder of the Comedy Central show "Nathan For You" said Monday that he's the owner of the faux cafe. The store, which has been serving out-the-door lines for the last several days, has attracted attention for its storefront with a nearly exact copy of a legitimate Starbucks Corp....

Los Feliz was buzzing Sunday afternoon as crowds of people lined up for hours to grab a cup of coffee from, uh, Dumb Starbucks. The mock store, which quietly opened Friday, is nearly identical to a typical Starbucks location, with tumblers and CDs, including "Dumb Jazz Standards," on display - but not for sale. Drinks are served in cups that mock the Seattle coffee giant's logo, while pastries are pulled from display cases straight in their Vons' packaging. The menu features such offerings as Dumb Iced Coffee, Dumb Frappuccinos and Wuppy Duppy Latte.

Los Feliz was buzzing Sunday afternoon as crowds of people lined up for hours to grab a cup of coffee from, uh, “Dumb Starbucks.” The mock store, which quietly opened Friday, is nearly identical to a typical Starbucks location, with tumblers for sale and trendy CDs, including "Dumb Jazz Standards," displayed on the counter. But the similarities end there. Drinks here are served in green and white “Dumb Starbucks coffee” cups, while pastries are pulled from display cases straight from their Vons' packaging.

Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Howard Schultz is passing off day-to-day duties at the world's largest coffee chain to his chief financial officer. Schultz will focus on blending the company's bricks-and-mortar, e-commerce, digital, card and mobile businesses - what he called “next generation retailing” in a statement Wednesday. He will also direct his energy toward advancing the Seattle business' loyalty program and beverage innovation. As he tries to pin down the company's broad-strokes strategy, CFO Troy Alstead will take over the daily grind.

Square and Starbucks have announced a partnership that will see the coffee company begin using the start-up's services at about 7,000 of its U.S. stores this fall while also investing $25 million in it. The partnership will let Starbucks customers use the Pay with Square app to open a tab at the company's shops and pay using their connected credit card without having to pull the card out. The Seattle coffee company will also put...

Starbucks is knocking down the suggested retail price for its packaged grounds. The discounts, set to begin May 10, will cover the Seattle coffee giant's packaged coffee in U.S. grocery stores and other retailers, but not at its ever-present coffee shops, said company spokesman Zack Hutson. The price drop also covers the company's Seattle's Best brand. Prices will drop an average of 10%, he said. For example, the price for a 12-ounce bag of Starbucks coffee -- ground or whole-bean -- will drop to $8.99 from $9.99, while a 12-ounce bag of Seattle's Best will also drop a dollar, to $6.99.

Business travel has rebounded from the Great Recession, but lots of travelers remain frugal when spending company money on the road. That was one of the findings of a new report that analyzed millions of business travel expense reports. For breakfast, the most frequent eatery for business travelers was Starbucks -- 14% of travelers bought food from the coffee shop, spending an average of $8.44 per meal, according to an analysis for the last...